Building our new home in Hornsby

the wardrobes arent quite the same ay.............................

I just wanted to send you my best. It was such a lovely design and you had gone through so much to find a design, builder, knocked back in council, then back to council etc, that I just wish you well and hope that something amazing will fall into your laps..
dont lose faith, maybe you will meet a builder in bali who can and will do it..you never know!
take care and have a fun break.

Hi Kiwi!

Thanks for the well wishes. Don't be fooled by the standard plans. The changes we would make would result in a 7 square metre WIR for the master. By order of the boss! Talking about moving the ensuite down, eliminating the WIR where it is and creating a walkway from the stairs landing to service the Home Theatre, which will be the same size as the garage and sit directly above it. Brings the house up to about 37 squares, which will be nice.

Be nice to have some good luck. In any case, we should be grateful for what we have. Our health, family to love and friends to whinge to!

Take care. I expect your home will be finished by the time I get home in September.

Greg

yeah, I wish! putting the drawings into council on tuesday...
then we wait....

well, I hope you can tweak it to make it just perfect for you, and think of all the money you will save with this one!! whooaoao!
loads left for more holidays....

I went to bali in 86. I LOVED poppies restaurant, I wonder if it is still there..by kuta beach. steaks were $4, it was AMAZING
enjoy and have a massage on the beach for me..ha ha

Hi Greg,

So how's this all coming along?

Hi there Ted,

Well, all of the prices so far have been way too high. We are still waiting on a couple of prices back but I am not overly hopeful.. In the interim, I am doing what every self respecting Aussie would do.... packed my suitcase and gone to Bali for three weeks! Trying to massage the angst out of me!

We should have some news back next week but I think we will probably end up with a project home rather than custom. This being the case, what can you do with a 7 metre x 6 metre home theater? I may get that larger screen after all! Little worried about the acoustics but we are at a point that we just need to build.

Take care mate. catch up with you later.

Greg

Hi guys,

Again, sorry to those who have PM'd me. I promise to get back to you but for some reason I am unable to reply to PM's here at the hotel.

Promise to get back to you upon my return from holidays. Kiwi, we are staying at Poppies Cottages next week for our final 7 nights. Off to Ubud tomorrow. Bugger...just going to have to have more massages!

Thanks again for all your feedback.

Greg

Hi Michelle,

We are in same boat as Greg ... Would you mind to pm me your builder's name as well ? ..... Thanks

Hi All,

We have been searching for a custom builder in Sydney for a long time and so far we have not been able to find one... It is getting very frustrating.
Currently we already have a DA approved plan and we just need to find a suitable builder. We thought getting the DA approved is difficult, and do not realise that finding a suitable custom builder is just as painful.
It looks like many of you in this forum have been going through the same painful and frustrating process as we are.
It will be very appreciated if any of you are able to advise on any good custom builders ... Thanks.

Hi Dreamer,

Yes, isn't it frustrating! You think you find someone only to find that they will not commit to the plans they have drawn. Equally difficult is getting your own plans drawn and then being unable to find a builder. If you have a difficult site (sloping) Tullipan Homes have been recommended by many here. They are on the Central Coast but build in Sydney.

Have you tried Westminster Homes? They will build from your plans and offer better rates than many other builders. We are looking at one of their project home designs but they did look at the plans that were drawn by our previous builder. Yet another builder that could come nowhere near the original quoted price. Me smells a rat!

Anyway, I have previously built with Westminster and we had no problems with them. They offered good value for money. Not sure where you are building, but we are dealing with a lovely lady from the Central Coast, Lilian, who has been an absolute joy. You can find contact details on the website.

Best of luck

Greg

Hi Greg,

Thanks very much for the info, I find them very helpful; especially coming from your personal experiences.
I had contacted Tullipan and unfortunately they are unable to take on our project.
So far we still haven't got a chance to pop in to see westminster display homes yet.
Hope that you will find a builder to build your custom designed home soon.

how was bali?
how was westminster homes...been to see them yet to discuss them building with you again?
seen anything you can build on your section?
hope it is going better for you now.

G'Day there Kiwi,
Nice to hear from you! We are still kicking around although have not had a great deal to report. Bali was nice. It was a welcome respite from all of the frustrating garbage going on over the past year or so. As always with holidays, coming back to reality was a little bit of a jolt!

Westminster Homes have been awesome. We have been toing and froing with them for the past couple of months and as of a fortnight ago, we put our deposit down for plans to be drawn up. I spent a lot of time talking to their designer, who was happy to put in the work up front and they are confident that we will get the plans through complying development. Not often that you can pick up the phone and talk to the GM of the company, but Westminster seem to be that kind of company.

Only glitch is that they insist on their surveyor undertaking another survey. I can understand all of the reasons, but it's a bit frustrating after already outlaying $1100 for our current survey. For anyone considering going with Westminster, get them to do the survey. They will not use any other surveys. Other builders seem to use existing surveys.

So, we are hoping to push ahead with a modified Huntley design, with the garage to the RHS and a home theatre above the garage. Hopefully we will get some plans back within a few weeks and I will post them then. We have given up on building the original plans. Was going to be well over 400-450K to build and that's before we hit the usual snags along the way.

Nice to atleast be moving in the right direction....we hope!

Cheers

Greg

http://www.westminsterhomes.com.au/huntley.html

this one?

they sound really good and wanting to help which is always a plus.
well done...it will all work out in the end. although that end could be a few months away!!

look forward to seeing the plans,
all the best,

Yes a bit OT ...but if I was going to be living in Hornsby I'd be stoked with the shopping centre you have there
The food - seafood, butcher, veggies, cakes and plethora of specialty shops blew me away!
I went to buy a battery for my camera and spent a small fortune on a delightful last meal before leaving town tomorrow.
(for home).
BTW the new battery showed me that my charger was the problem

Hi there Kiwi,

Yes, that's the one, although there are a number of mods that we have made to the home, the most obvious being the garage moved to the right of the home, eaves on the top storey, the garage extended to 8 metres deep x 6 metres wide and the same sized home theatre above the garage. The extensions to the garage and the theater added about 34K to the cost of the home but will add more than that in value (when was the last time you managed to get two cars into a 'double garage'. Has become a bit of a joke! We also added 4.8 metre wide bifold doors to the rear of the home which will open out to a decked entertaining area and 13.5 metre lap pool. That will just about take care of the back yard but that's all we need. There will be a small front yard for the cubby house and we have a nice oval just a 100 metres away at the end of the street for the young one to play and for us to walk our staffie Jasper.

Onc, yes the shops at Hornsby are awesome. Westfield is a great shopping centre with great shops and yes, the food court and produce is awesome for the area. Glad that you enjoyed your stay!

Cheers all.

Greg

That's my "local" shopping centre. Seem to be there at least once a week. Like the fact that K-Mart is open 24 hours too.

Judie

it sounds fab greg. I am sure this time you will be able to do all you wanted and more...and in the end your mortgage wont be as big hopefully, so you can go on a cruise around the world to recover from building!!!

the pool and bi folds...YUM

lets hope you can start soon.
I guess you have to go back to council with this plan too, yes? grrrr!

Hi Kiwi,

Westminster will be using a private certifier rather than go through Council channels. We are going with complying development which means if Westminster get all of the required info to the Certifier and it's in order, then it should be approved within 10 calendar days. I would expect, with all of the detail required for CD applications it should take a few weeks. Fingers crossed. Will keep you posted. How are things going with your place. Another tremor over your way I believe?

I have a site scrape!! see my thread, pics put on yesterday.
valentines is my goal.

just a slight prob with finance!!

I cant wait to see yours, it is going to rock.
keep us posted, or you know I will hound you!!

Hey Greg,

I've got some nice looking frames. When are you going to be down my way

Bel